Good news, everyone! I just heard from the dev. This means that things ARE being worked on. In fact, one big issue has been fixed.
You can now use HB to buy Pokeballs. Right now, there's only 1 package you can buy and it costs 50 HB (actually it says $50, but that's only because I haven't been able to find in the system where he's hidden the "$" in the phrases).
So what are the next steps? Well, the next steps are to dramatically lower the catch rate for the Pokemon. A lot of them will be at 0% so you won't be able to catch them at ALL without a Pokeball. Some you still will, but not a lot. It'll be largely based on who or what they are, their speed, etc. These changes will be coming slowly and once done I'll let you know. I'm hoping specialized Pokeballs will be coming soon. I can't see that it would be too difficult for him to program in, but considering his level of responsiveness I'm happy to have gotten this far!